Chosen (39 page)

T
he air fizzes with particles in the light that's always on. There's no change in it, no fluctuation, no dark, no day, no night. The particles are all there is to watch; they dance in the commotion caused by her breath.

The feeling of hunger is interesting. Actually, she's hardly hungry any more. There's a tap and she can drink as much as she likes. Every time she thinks it's time for breakfast or lunch or dinner she clamps her mouth round the tap and glugs until her stomach is full. It must be at least two days and nights she's been here, she calculates, but not as many as five.

She sleeps, she wakes, she sleeps. In sleep the dreams are more vivid than anything that happens when she's awake. Mostly it's a half-sleep, a doze, which is almost cosy. For some reason, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody' goes round in her head, looping and rising and falling to a whisper of
Be-elzebub
and how did that get there? And it won't stop; the particles in her brain must be stuck in a loop or a holding pattern.
Nothing really matters, nothing really matters.

There's no sound outside: no footsteps or voices or birdsong or drainpipes. Only the sounds from inside and
they are deafening.
Easy come, easy go
. And then the door opens and Seth seems to be there.

Seth?

He's as vivid as a dream and as interesting: thick eyebrows, deep blue eyes, a smattering of dark young whiskers. And the darling straightness of his nose. He fidgets about in the way he's always had, never able to keep still for five minutes. It used to drive Stella crazy.

It really
is
Seth. His face is his face, at the top of a crumpled lilac robe. The crumples are shadowed grey and blue and there are stains, soup stains, tea stains. The particles in the air have gone berserk with the opening of the door.

‘Thank
God
. Dodie.' It's his voice and he leans down. The warmth of his cheek shocks her properly awake, pushes her up to sitting.

‘Where's Jake?' she says, and letting in that name fills her with a hot wash of fear. The room wobbles and spins and her focus shifts, there's a smell of something familiar but she can't think what it is.

‘Get up,' Seth says. ‘We've got to get out of here, now.'

‘What's happened?'

‘
Now
.'

‘I can't.' She tries to stand but her legs are weak. ‘Jake?' she says again.

‘Come on.'

‘Daniel took him,' she says.

‘Daniel?'

And then she recognizes the smell of burning and a soundless scream comes from her mouth. Seth pulls her to her feet and rushes her along the corridor.

‘Where is he? Where's Hannah? She made Daniel take him.'

‘What? We're going to him.'

‘Are we?' Dodie's legs stop working and she crouches, faintness fizzing and sparkling in her ears and eyes.

‘Not now,' Seth pleads. ‘Come on.'

‘But
Jake
?' She's bitten her tongue and the sharp iron taste wakes her. A small reservoir of energy gets into gear, going to Jake, going to him, going to him.

‘Where?' she says again, but Seth is concentrating on finding his way through the corridors; maybe they're lost, like rats in a maze, coming to a dead end or a locked door, but it's all different now; there are doors that are open where once they were all shut, doors gaping onto rooms, and in one Dodie sees three people sleeping on the floor, neatly, face up, hands folded on their chests and she thinks she recognizes some of the faces. Her feet stop.
What?

Seth drags her on and he is stronger and she lets herself be whisked along like a ghost of herself just above the surface of the ground. They go to a room she's never been inside before, with filing cabinets and computers and a plastic smell. An old man is sitting with his head in his hands. On the desk in front of him, there's a pile of pills beside a glass of water. He raises his hairy grey face when they come in.

‘Ah, good,' he says. He gives Seth a thick brown envelope. ‘Now scram.'

‘I can't,' Dodie says. ‘My little boy . . .'

‘You're going to him,' the man says. ‘No time, no time.'

Dodie's head goes into a swoon but her legs still work and so does her ability to obey orders. Outside a car is waiting, engine revving. There is smoke in the air, looming blackly from somewhere at the back of the building. There's the heavy
thwack
,
thwack
of a helicopter, its belly a fat glassy shine above her. Seth opens the car, shoves her in the back seat and slams the door.

R
ebecca's in the driving seat, revving the engine.

‘Rebecca?' Dodie says. ‘How?
You?
'

‘It's Bex,' Rebecca says and, ‘Shhh, let me concentrate. Haven't driven for frigging yonks.' She manoeuvres the car through the open gates, out onto the road and puts her foot down.

Seth reaches back to give Dodie a banana. She holds it for a moment before peeling back the skin and filling her mouth
with the dense sweet flesh. Her salivary glands start to pump again and it hurts, like small explosions in her cheeks; she swallows a big lump and it forces down her throat like rape. Nausea clamps her stomach almost shut, but at the same time she feels the sugar immediately getting into her blood, a distinct tracery through her body as it branches; miraculous how fast it spreads. She eats another bite and then another and then her throat closes and her stomach feels like it will split.

There is the sound of sirens. ‘Fuck, that was close,' Rebecca says.

‘What's happening?'

‘It's all gone tits up,' Rebecca explains. ‘The police are arresting everyone who hasn't scarpered or . . .'

Died
, Dodie thinks. The banana threatens to come back up again; she swallows hard, hardens her eyes.

‘Your clothes are there, better change and we'll chuck the robes away.'

‘Why are they arresting people?' Dodie says.

‘We don't know,' Seth says. His voice sounds very young and gruff. She would hug him if she could reach. There's a tangled pile on the back seat. Rebecca, or Bex, Dodie notices, is wearing a denim jacket and specs.

‘You're wearing glasses,' Dodie says.

‘Not allowed to in there,' Rebecca says, ‘so I was blind as a frigging bat.'

‘Not allowed?' Now Dodie comes to think of it, she'd not seen anyone wearing glasses at Soul-Life. She imagines glasses with a mask and gives a soggy giggle.

‘It's fantastic to see straight again,' Rebecca says. ‘I can't think straight when I can't see.'

The saliva is still pumping stupidly in Dodie's mouth. She swallows it; watches the low suburban sprawl flow past the windows.

She takes a deep breath. Her heart is swinging like a pendulum, hurting each time it strikes her ribs. ‘Do you know where Jake is?' she dares to ask.

‘Florida.'

‘
Florida?
'

‘Martha took him,' Seth says. ‘I've got the address and everything and money to get us there – from Obadiah. I've got our passports and thousands of dollars.' He holds out a wad of money.

‘Martha took him?' Dodie says. Her stomach is cramping. ‘No, it was Daniel – it was
Hannah
.' In the sound of a siren she hears Jake's cry as he was snatched from her arms.

‘Obadiah said it was Martha,' Seth says.

Dodie's mind scrambles. Was Martha in league with them, then? But no, no.

‘
Why?
Why would Martha take him?' A bus overtakes them, sending up a sluice of water. ‘
Florida?
' she says again. Adrenalin fizzes through her, yet there's nothing she can do but sit here, sit still, in this car.

Rebecca looks back over her shoulder. ‘Better change before we get to the airport. The police are searching.'

‘For what? I don't understand,' Dodie says weakly. ‘What I saw, did I see bodies? I thought –'

‘Later,' Rebecca says. ‘Let me concentrate; never driven on the right before.'

‘But there were
bodies
.'

There is no response. It's starting to rain and Rebecca fumbles about to find the wipers. Dodie watches them swish to and fro and to and fro. She looks at her brother's shoulder, leans forward and pokes his arm. ‘Why wouldn't you see me when I came all this way?' she demands.

Seth twists his neck to look at her, his expression puzzled, dazed, as if he's just waking up. ‘Don't know,' he says. ‘Don't remember. I . . . Hannah was telling me . . . no . . . it's all fuzzy. I went kind of ballistic when we got there and someone gave me a jab and then . . .' He bites a knuckle, as if that will help him think. ‘I remember you on the phone and she said I mustn't worry you.'

‘Worry me?'

His brow is furrowed with the effort of remembering. He looks older. In just these few weeks – and yet he looks like a baby too. Her baby brother. She sees how bitten the nails are, the specks of blood around the cuticles.

‘Hannah said you were ill again,' he continues. ‘She told me to humour you, she said and I . . . oh, I can't remember. And I kept seeing Mum . . .
I kept seeing her
, Dodie.'

‘What do you mean?' Goosebumps riffle over Dodie's skin and she hugs her arms.

‘Like a ghost,' he says.

‘Maybe a dream?' Rebecca suggests.

Seth shakes his head, almost angrily. ‘No.'

He turns back to look out of the windscreen and Dodie takes in his fine, familiar profile, his fluffy stubble, his filthy ears. Another police vehicle screams towards them in the opposite direction, siren warping as it passes.

‘Fuck,' Rebecca says.

‘Yeah, fuck,' Seth agrees and Dodie feels her face split in an empty, automatic grin.

‘Anyway,' Seth says after a moment. ‘They put me in a peace-pod, like in solitary, for
weeks
it felt like.'

‘Pea pod?'

‘Peace-pod, like you were in.'

‘Cell,' she says, and no one contradicts her.

‘Seth,' she says and leans forward to touch the reality of his shoulder. ‘It's all right.' He catches her hand and squeezes it tight. Their eyes meet, and snag, and look away again.

It's cold. She reaches for the clothes, the jeans, the sweater, the leather jacket; she shoves Seth's clothes to him and they shift and wriggle in their seats as they struggle to dress. She has to undo her seat belt and sit sideways to get into her jeans. They are stiff and alien, so much too big around her waist that she doubts they're really hers – but yes, there is that bleach mark, and in the pocket the New York transport map she shoved there, it seems like years ago. The watch has gone, though, those clever little numerals that Rod did.

‘Did you see my watch?' she says.

Rebecca shakes her head. ‘I just had to, like, grab what I could quick.'

‘Doesn't matter,' Dodie says. And it doesn't. Some things she can let go. Just things. They throw the robes out of the car window and see them swirl away like lilac spooks.

The wipers are making Dodie sleepy now. To and fro –
going to Jake, going to Jake
– clearing a space that is only a space for a split second before the raindrops slant, gelid, halfway to being sleet. It's winter after all. ‘What's the date?' she says.

‘Dunno,' Seth says.

‘Must be nearly Christmas,' Rebecca guesses. She looks over her shoulder. ‘You OK?'

Dodie opens her mouth on a logjam of too much to say, but where to start? It's impossible, and she shuts it again, swallows hard.

‘We'll get there,' Rebecca says. ‘We'll get a flight and then we can fill you in – on as much as we know.'

‘You coming with us?' Seth asks her.

‘You joking?' Rebecca says. ‘I've always fancied Florida.'

‘Me too.' He gives a weak little laugh and begins to gnaw what's left of his thumbnail.

Dodie closes her eyes and goes into the thought of Jake, willing him to be safe. She saw him for such a brief time; held him, inhaled him and then he was snatched away. Still, in her hands is the sensation of him, his weight on her lap. And she can still feel Hannah's hands on her back, pushing.
Were
they in it together, Hannah and Martha? In what, though? Why would Martha take him and leave her behind? Poor Jake, he'll be so confused. Why would Martha want him? But it's no good, there's no sense to be had and her mind stalls. She lets the wipers lull her into a shallow kind of trance.

T
he airport swarms with uniforms and the long black snouts of guns. It's Christmas here, Santa ringing a hand bell, the ground wet from boots and dripping umbrellas. The three of them buy tickets for the first flight to Tampa and then go to a café. Dodie and Seth sit down while Rebecca orders them each a cheese sandwich with a sticky
heap of coleslaw and a mountain of crisps. She brings back three giant milkshakes: one pink, one yellow, one brown. The cheese has a waxy, personal taste and the sandwich is so gigantic Dodie can do no more than nibble the edge, but she sucks the milkshake, strawberry, in long, smooth glugs, feeling her stomach stretch and bulge against her ribs. Seth finishes his sandwich and reaches for the rest of Dodie's.

‘You must be starving too,' she says. ‘I think my stomach's shrunk.'

‘I had plenty of food,' he says.

‘While you were locked up?'

‘Yeah.'

‘I had none,' she says. They stare at each other.

‘Nobody brought you
anything
?' Rebecca says. ‘For how long?'

‘Who put you in?' asks Seth.

‘Hannah.'

‘But Hannah's cool,' Seth says.

‘
Cool?'
Dodie chokes on a crumb in her throat, and Seth whacks her on her back until tears fly from eyes. ‘
Cool?
' she says again, when she can speak.